We broke schedule and stopped by a saferoom to shower before heading to the cyper-reptile city. The distance between cities was further than I expected and Cascadia insisted we make a quick stop by a training guild to ask Jasper some questions.

  “Are these drugs worth the trip?”

  “I think so. You are extremely ahead of the level curve, your experience gains are already starting to plateau. A few more levels would be great, but I think you can do that and still get the ingredients Parson needs. I think he knows what he’s doing, and drugs are absolutely valuable in the dungeon. Money will become useful starting on the third floor. You should try to permanently party with Parson before this floor is over. He would be a perfect party member for you. He might even be more useful than a medic type, which is what I had been hoping you would find. He has good damage, will probably get good utility, will certainly be an incredible crafter, and will play well with the viewers!”

  “We’ll see. I like him but I’m not sure I think we should hitch up permanently.”

  Between the travel to Parson, the neighborhood boss fight, the stops, and traveling to the next city we had spent over half of our twenty hours of activity. When we arrived I stowed the speeder and sent the drone ahead at full speed to find the first point of interest. The new “city” maintained a simple corridor structure, as was standard for first floors, but the layout was clearly different than the cephalopod city. The corridors were all completely straight with only ninety degree turns. I zipped by some red-tagged mobs too quickly to identify them and came to a large open room with bright UV lights warming the area. There were a dozen cybernetically enhanced lizards that turned to look at my drone before I turned it around and brought it back.

  “Well, they probably know we’re coming but at least I know where to find some mobs. Let's go.”

  With no need for stealth we set out at a jog. My enhanced constitution of eight allowed me to keep what felt like an incredible pace. I could outperform all but the most elite of unenhanced humans. I kept the drone a hundred meters ahead of us and it spotted the first pair of mobs waiting in a side corridor. I paused the drone just long enough to read their tooltips, then sent it on as though it hadn’t seen them.

  Gellen: Two mobs in the corridor 100 meters ahead, on the right. Level 5 laser monitors.

  Cascadia: Got it. You take the lead?

  Gellen: If you insist.

  Cascadia and I had discussed this on the way over. Now that our levels were more than double many of the standard first floor mobs we gained very little experience and could dispatch the mobs easily. Cascadia insisted that killing them with our comfortable methods was a waste of time. She wanted me to work on my hand to hand combat and pistol skills. I argued that we needed to spam our best abilities, even on low level mobs, to raise our in-game skill levels as much as possible. We compromised and I agreed to do it her way on mobs level five and under when there were three or less. We had worked out several maneuvers for such situations.

  I reversed the drone as we neared the side-corridor, timing its arrival with ours. It beamed its light, illuminating the dark corridor. I barreled into the hallway, guiding myself with the drone camera. My enhanced constitution, heal ability, and protective gear gave me the confidence to focus on executing my rehearsed motions. I punched the first lizard with my gauntlet. My strength was completely unenhanced and the punch was not impressive, but it was enough to trigger the gauntlet which sent the one meter tall lizard into convulsions.

  The mobs were green, bipedal lizards with long tails and red-tinted cybernetic monocles. I shot the one I had stunned point-blank with my disruptor pistol, killing him. The other mob started to charge up a blast from his monocle but Cascadia tackled him, rolling and coming up with the lizard in an immobilizing grip for me to shoot. It felt uncomfortably unsporting, but I shot the lizard twice, ending the fight.

  “Ok, maybe you were right. That didn’t feel great,” she said.

  “I won’t say I told you so. Let's keep moving, there’s a large group of them sunning in a heat room just a kilometer ahead.”

  We took off at a strong pace.

  “So how does it feel to be able to actually run? Pretty awesome huh?”

  “I mean, I like not being tired. I’d still rather drive though. I can’t wait till we figure out a way to armor the speeder so I never have to walk again.”

  “You’re hopeless.”

  Our concern about damaging the speeder was soon vindicated. There were no doors to the sunning chamber, just four open entryways. The lizards were waiting and as soon as my drone entered the room a dozen laser monocles locked onto it. The lizards had a weak laser attack but once they had a target locked they had almost perfect accuracy. My drone had no armor enhancements and went down under a barrage of red lasers.

  I had grown accustomed to having a birdseye view and I felt blind as we approached the entryway.

  “Maybe fifteen mobs. All laser monitors. They got my drone.”

  “Ok. Standard room approach then. I’ll hit ‘em with some shock and awe, you get your turret down and keep them suppressed. Let’s leave one alive.”

  I nodded and Cascadia burst into a sprint, pulling her staff from her ear and extending it. I pre-set the turret to target the nearest mob with over half health and followed as Cascadia leaped into the room. Fifteen red dots appeared on her as the monitor’s locked on. Before they could fire, Cascadia landed, slamming her staff against the ground and activating Seismic Smash, knocking a group of five from their feet. Ten lasers zapped against her shield, lowering it to half health. I threw my turret to the center of the room and it started firing and swiveling about, rapidly changing targets. A few more lasers dissipated against Cascadia's shield before they were all scrambling for better cover. Cascadia whirled around the room, swinging with her staff in wide arcs. Lizard bodies and UV lights alike broke and flew through the room. When the minimap showed only one red dot left, Cascadia stopped. A bloody trail led to an overturned table, behind which a single lizard huddled, holding a bullet wound in his leg.

  Cascadia looked at me uncertainly.

  Cascadia: What do we do now?

  Gellen: We need to find out where they make the egg enhancing juice. You’ve got the twelve in charisma. Persuade him to tell you. Or intimidate him, I don’t know.

  Cascadia walked over to the table and threw it aside. The lizard tried to lock onto her with his laser but Cascadia reached down and ripped off his monocle. She looked back at me again. I nodded encouragingly.

  “Do you speak common,” she asked the lizard.

  “It doesn’t matter you stupid monkey, there is universal translation in the dungeon,” the lizard hissed, blood pouring from his wound. “Just my luck, two days before the end of the floor…how are you two so strong? The other crawlers that came through were so soft…stop staring at me and just kill me if you are going to kill me. Warm-blooded idiots." Cascadia considered for a moment, then took out a healtech jet-injector and held out her hand.

  “We are just looking for information.”

  The lizard scoffed but took the injector, his wound closed and his health rose from just under half to about three quarters full.

  “Funny way of asking for it,” he said, glancing at the ruined room full of corpses. “If you aren’t going to kill me I’m going to leave.” He moved to slip past Cascadia but her hand shot out, lighting fast, pinning him to the wall. He squirmed futilely.

  “What the fuck are you? How do you know when the floor is going to end?”

  “Aren’t monkeys supposed to be smart or something? I live here,” he flicked his tongue in a gesture that surely meant something insulting.

  “Look, just tell us where the egg juicing factories are and I’ll let you go. We don’t care about you or any of your kind, we just need some eggs and whatever it is you put in them.”

  The little lizard's eyes shone with malice.

  “Typical mammal. You’re like the orcs. Just eggs, just juice you say. You don’t even view us as people. Warm-blooded superiority complex. You can go fuck yourself, I’m not telling you anything.”

  Cascadia lifted the lizard off the ground, his legs and tail thrashing in the air.

  “Tell me what I want to know, or so help me, I will peel the scales from your body and feed them to you until you choke. And then I will prosecute a campaign of terror against your people that will not end until I have killed every lizard, and cracked every egg on this floor.”

  Red particles swirled around her, matching her red, glowing tattoos.

  “Tell me where the nearest facility is and you can run there ahead of me, I’ll give you time. You can tell them to evacuate, or you can tell them to try to stop me, I don’t care. But give me the wrong location and I will end your people.”

  He stammered out some directions and Cascadia set him down. He scampered away.

  “What the fuck Gel. These lizards are like regular people. What is going on here?”

  “I don-”

  “Of course you don’t know. We’re going to a tutorial guild right now.”

  I collected my drone, which needed a few hours to repair itself, zoomed out my minimap, and set off in search of the nearest saferoom.

  “Look, I am not an expert on NPCs. When I was a crawler I actively tried to ignore thinking about it. I had a party member who was obsessed with them, and it did not go well for him,” Jasper was explaining to Cascadia.

  “The codex is millions of pages long, I try to just focus on the things that are relevant to my crawlers’ success!”

  “Are they like us or not?”

  “Inreally think you should try to not think about this, but here is what I do know. There are two main categories that matter; syndicate citizen and natural born biological. I am a natural born biological but I’m not a syndicate citizen. Citizens have many benefits, rights, and protections that I won’t have when I leave the dungeon but I do have certain rights as a natural born. Most relevant, it is illegal to modify my memories without my consent. NPCs are in neither of these categories. They are property of the Valtay corporation, created, not born, for the purposes of the dungeon. So, they are like you in that they are real, biological creatures. But they aren’t natural born entities.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “That is beyond fucked up.”

  I tried my best to completely ignore the conversation as they continued on. I had decided long ago that viewing NPCs as set pieces in a game was the only viable option. I had watched empathy for NPCs get crawlers killed more times than I can count. There were even entire productions dedicated to the topic. Nope, I was not going to go down that path; I was going to stay focused and get us out of this dungeon.

  Instead of listening to the conversation I reflected on our progress so far. It was fortunate that we had leveled so rapidly in the first days, because today was not looking great, and tomorrow we had to find time to travel back to meet Parson again. We would be lucky to get more than a single boss fight in. I tuned back in as the conversation started to wind down.

  “Calm down Jasper, I’m fine. I’m not the sentimental type. You don’t see me crying about the three player killer skulls I got; I’m not going to lose it just because the lizards we are fighting happen to be sapient. I just want to understand the situation.”

  Jasper did not look convinced.

  “Do you think they’ve had enough time to flee or prepare?” Cascadia asked me. “If we are killing people, I’d rather let them go down swinging.”

  My drone had finished its self repair routine and I sent it out to inspect the directions we had coerced out of the little lizard. The lizards had not fled. The factory filled a large, open space with three different entryways. The lizards had barricaded two of them with hastily constructed metal stockades and rudimentary laser grids. Over fifty lizards filled the factory, most guarding the front entrance while a few continued to shore up the barricades. I managed a maximum speed flythrough without taking any hits to the drone. The factory itself was simple, focused around a single enormous chemical still with a dozen feed and distribution pipes. I explained the situation to Cascadia.

  “If we can take out all the lizards without catastrophically damaging the equipment we should have all the juice we could want, there are even distribution canisters stacked about that we can fill the speeder with. But it’s a lot of lizards. Not just the level five laser monitors either. There are a dozen level seven “crocodilian cyborg bruisers.” They have electrified chainsaw hands.”

  “We came all the way out here, there is no way I’m going back empty handed.”

  “Ok, I’ve got an idea.”

  I approached the main entrance with my drone, firing the mini-cannon. The lizards scrambled to defensive positions and my drone was blasted out of the air as it drew their attention. A few seconds later we hit one of the side barricades at maximum velocity with the speeder as I activated my Vehicle Shield ability. If I used all my energy points I could make it last for about three quarters of a second, which was enough time to block the lasers and smash through the stockade without damaging the vehicle or its passengers too much. I slammed on the repulsor brakes and Cascadia dropped her adhesion disc to the ground as an escape tether before she launched out of the vehicle towards the enemies clustered around the front. She activated her Seismic Smash skill as she landed, scattering the lizards like bowling pins. The scene was already complete chaos as I deployed the auto-turret and took cover behind the speeder. Though the lizards had an overwhelming numbers advantage they were not able to effectively organize. Cascadia whirled about the scattered mobs with her staff, smashing heads and throwing bodies while my turret unleashed a steady stream of bullets. Chaos reigned and the minimap filled with X’s rapidly.

  Most of the lizards died quickly but the Crocodilian bruisers were much tougher. Cascadia hit one of them with a spinning strike that sent him flying across the room to crash into the speeder. Metal crunched and my turret turned to target him. He scrambled for cover, his health half gone, and rolled behind the speeder. Right next to me. I yelped and jumped backwards. The turret was punching holes into the speeder door, trying to get to the mob, but the bullets didn’t carry enough power after passing through to deal significant damage.

  The crocodilian embraced the opportunity to take on a weaker opponent and he revved his chainsaw as he stalked towards me. I looked desperately for Cascadia but she was engaging with the last four bruisers and a pair of lizards herself; she kicked her staff at the lizards, knocking them over, and switched to her vibro-axe, dancing away from the slower bruisers.

  I was on my own this time. The Crocodilian was bigger, stronger, and faster than me and we both knew it. He lunged toward me with his chainsaw raised. I did the only thing I could and used a move Cascadia and I had worked on; I stepped into the swing, using my left arm to divert the chainsaw while I punched with my stun gauntlet. I successfully executed the maneuver but the rotating laser bits cut straight through my arm, just above the wrist, leaving a rough but cauterized stump. I screamed as a three second timer appeared over the mob.

  Sometimes, when you are faced with death, you freeze. I had done that multiple times on the first day. But sometimes a path of action is clear and you can focus through the fear and pressure. I don’t know if it was the training, the time in dungeon, the specific situation, or just random psychological chance, but this time I moved instantly. I brushed past the stunned crocodilian and reached into the speeder, pushing on the throttle while I activated my healing burst ability. The heavily damaged speeder managed to lurch forward a few meters, opening a clear line of fire from turret to croc. The turret riddled him with bullets as his stun timer expired.

  His health plummeted and he collapsed; I switched the turret to target the red tagged mob second closest to Cascadia, who was struggling to take the offensive against four coordinated opponents, and pulled out my disruptor to finish off the almost dead croc. This time I did freeze as I watched him pull out a detonator.

  “Fuck you,” he croaked.

  I broke free of my stupor and rushed a shot, aiming for his hand. The shot went wide and he pressed the trigger.

  Gellen: Recall!

  Cascadia activated her Gravitational Coupling skill just as the distribution canisters blew. They had been laced with explosives and they erupted, a shockwave carrying fire and orange liquid through the room. Cascadia made it a third of the way to the exit before the shockwave caught her, throwing her into the wall and redlining her health. The shockwave hit me next. I was farther back and the explosion had lost much of its strength but I was still thrown into the wall, narrowly missing being crushed by the speeder, which was also tossed by the blast. My health dipped to under ten percent, but I remained conscious. I reeled from the pain and the shock but I managed to use a heal injector. It was another ten seconds before I could see straight, but I was stabilized. I lurched over to Cascadia, who had the word unconscious over her. Her health had to be under five percent, barely a sliver. I used an injector on her and her health started to rise.

  I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and took stock. The room was filled with dead mobs, nothing moved on the minimap. My speeder, turret, and drone were all trashed and small fires were burning. Every canister had been blown or overturned and the main sill was cracked and pouring liquid onto the floor. There would be no collection of ingredients for us. Cascadia groaned as she returned to consciousness and sat up.

  “What was that?”

  “They rigged the canisters with explosives.”

  “That wasn’t very sporting of them.”

  “No one cares about being sporting, Cascadia.”

  She shook her head and stood up, dusting herself off. She looked at me and immediately noticed my hand, which I clutched to my chest.

  “Oh my God Gel, what happened?”

  I shrugged. “One of those chainsaw guys made his way over to me. I took care of him.”

  “I’m so sorry Gel. I…must have lost track of him.”

  “It’s not your fault, let's get out of here. We need a saferoom ASAP, we are extremely vulnerable. All my stuff needs repairing.”

  I stowed the speeder and pulled the repair bay, the drone, and my turret into my inventory before we ran to the nearest saferoom.

  There was a full service saferoom just a kilometer away and we reached it without any interference. This saferoom had a service cyborg just like Parson’s, but it was completely devoid of personality. We still had an hour of activity time left but considering the state of my equipment we decided to call it a day an hour early.

  “I’m impressed, you handled that bruiser alone.”

  “Well, he was already at half health when you sent him to me.”

  “Sorry about that again. Still, it looks like some of our close quarters training paid off. We should keep working on it.”

  I stared at my stump. It didn’t hurt, it hadn’t since the fight had ended, but I was still missing a hand. I only had one left.

  “We could keep doing that…or we could just find ways for me to escape those situations. I’m never going to be good enough to go toe-to-toe with these mobs.”

  “You went toe-to-toe with one today.”

  “Yeah, it just cost me a limb.”

  “We should have installed the benevolent worm into you. Then you could have put it back on.”

  She pulled out the squid shaped jelly and held it out to me.

  “Here, I bet this will work.”

  “No, save it. I barely use my hands anyway. It’s probably better this way, it will free up brain space for controlling my drones and turrets.”

  Though I wasn’t going to line up to take on another chainsaw bruiser one on one, losing my hand had not been nearly as bad as I might have expected. The pain had been short lived and masked by adrenaline. With the healing abilities and the natural dungeon healing, I was already completely recovered. I was missing a hand, which was going to suck, but there was a silver lining. It was impossible to have a comprehensive understanding of race and class options but there were certain patterns and standards I had observed. Even though the specifics changed season to season, the most powerful races usually had extreme requirements and I suspected that limb loss might be required for some of the options that would be best for me. My two-dimensional viewing experience limited the details I was able to pick up but there had been hints. Not enough that I was prepared to cut-off a limb myself, but enough that I wasn’t going to waste such a powerful single-use item on my left hand. Not when I had a control interface implanted into my brain already.

  Cascadia looked at me for a long moment, but decided not to press the issue. She pulled out a ration bar and leaned back into a chair.

  “Can you feel it Gel?”

  “Feel what? Phantom pains from my missing hand.”

  “No, not that. Everything. Our whole bodies and minds changing.”

  “....”

  “My body is different, the whole integration with my mind too. I can feel new abilities, like they are just at the edge of my fingertips. I saw the explosion happening back there and for a moment I swear I could have….tunneled through it or something. I think it's something to do with my dexterity. And when I’m evading attacks it’s…different than before. It’s like, as my dodge skill is leveling up it teaches me different abilities and techniques and my reflexes are supercharged for specific situations. Did you know my dodge is level five now? And it’s the same with my other skills. My stats too. I can feel the latent power, just waiting for me. But they are all different, the abilities I have from items, the skills I got from the pills, and the skills I’m just training up spontaneously. At least I think they feel different.”

  She looked me dead in the eye.

  “We need to get to the third floor. I need to apply my stat points and learn how to use…all…this.”

  “That’s the plan. That’s always been the plan.”

  “I know, but I want it more now. So eat your ration bar, the stat enhancing items seem to be drying up.”

  I sighed and filled up a few glasses of water before struggling to open my bar with one hand. I sifted through my achievements. We had gone up another level, to eleven, but only one of the achievements had a reward.

  New achievement. Don’t worry, they grow back.

  While technically possible, your hand won’t actually grow back. The window for reattachment is long past and the percentage of crawlers who gain access to advanced regeneration is….lets just say the odds aren’t in your favor.

  Reward! You’ve received a bronze Buck Up Kiddo box.

  The box had a picture of a crying child on it and contained a rubberized hook with an autofitting collar for my stump. I sighed but put it on and used it to help open my ration bar.

  “Did you get anything?” I asked Cascadia, who had already finished her food and was practicing using her Gravitational Coupling skill to make her axe fly back to her after she threw it. She sliced off a finger trying to do a sliding catch. She cursed but activated her benevolent helminth and stuck it back on. It reattached after a few seconds. She was ridiculously cavalier about it.

  “I kind of love this place. In a weird, I’d rather not be almost dying all the time but also I love how quickly I can recover from near death and how I can push myself to the absolute edge and the abilities I have are amazing kind of way of course. And no, Gel. I didn’t get anything good because we haven’t done jack shit today since the boss battle, during which I got covered in poop and received for a reward nothing but a bottle of body spray and a second rate electrified boomerang.”

  She caught the axe successfully.

  “These drugs had better be worth it.”